LP tank monitoring

Timco

Howdy fellas. 

So I have 3) 120 gal LP tanks. The gauge goes to 100% but when filled to 100gal it makes them read 80% on the gauge, correct? Can anyone recommend a WiFi or wireless monitoring system like my smart oil gauge? The dials / gauges say “remote ready” on a small black tab. 

Thanks!  Loving New England but still getting used to oil & LP life. Using LP now due to oil costs. Usually we run oil with LP as backup but right now oil is still higher than LP. 

Tim 

Jamie Hall

Check your costs, @Timco . Is LP really cheaper than oil, per BTU? Remember that LP has only about 90,000 BTU per gallon and oil has about 140,000.

Timco

I had a equation written down somewhere to convert the numbers. It factored that and the LP boiler is 96% and the oil boiler is 84%. Of course the LP only sees that when below 140° or so. 

Jamie Hall said:

Check your costs, @Timco . Is LP really cheaper than oil, per BTU? Remember that LP has only about 90,000 BTU per gallon and oil has about 140,000.

Timco

LP is $4.10
Oil is $4.80. 

Oil was higher last week at about $4.99 when I switched to LP. LP wasn’t that much higher. 

hot_rod

The coalpail calc is nice as you can just keep scrolling price and efficiency options and see instant results.

https://coalpail.com/fuel-comparison-calculator-home-heating

I feel the efficiency numbers are hard to pin down. I suspect mod con efficiency stays higher across it's modulation. And of course assuming condensing mode for those 90%+m numbers.
A fixed burner NG, LP or oil would need to consider efficiency at times other than steady state.

The Brookhaven model shows a considerable drop, for example, on mild shoulder season loads, 35% and lower for example.

Looking at the heat load, hours of occurrence and actual boiler output could narrow down run time and efficiencies across the season. I doubt many run 84% range all season?

Jamie Hall

Timco said:

LP is $4.10
Oil is $4.80. 

Oil was higher last week at about $4.99 when I switched to LP. LP wasn’t that much higher. 

At those prices, oil is considerably cheaper per BTU than LP. 3.5 cents per thousand BTU for oil, 4.5 cents per thousand BTU for LP. A very common consumer error.

Condoman

I have a Wyze V3 camera (Wyze.com) pointing at my LP indicator. It is at the extreme range for Wi-Fi but I modified it to add an external camera. I power it with a 5VDC cable that runs to an inside power adapter. The camera has a magnetic base that holds it to the tank and there is a tank cover over that.

This allows me to monitor this tank from anywhere. If I had more tanks I would add more cameras.